If you are a brewery and you want to sell your beer, then the first market you would think of is the United States. But there is also a lot of competition there, and the Americans may want to drink their own beer.
Sell your beer to Spain for high volumes
If you start analysing the imports for beer per country, then you suddenly get a different picture. World Trade Analytics reveals that Spain is the market in the world with the highest volume of beer imports, and that the market is growing too. Second is France, and third is Italy.
Are all wine-drinkers shifting to beer? It seems so, because also in France and Italy the import is growing. The United States, the United Kingdom and Canada are the numbers 4, 5, and 6, but you’ll find hardly any growth there.
Sell your beer to Sweden for high prices
The best price for your beer you can get in Sweden. Perhaps this does not seem so surprising, since everybody who has visited Scandinavia complaints about the steep alcohol prices there. But this is mostly caused by the government with duties and VAT. World Trade Analytics looks at the price of the goods when they cross the border. Taxes are not taken into account, it is just the price that you get as an exporter. And still then, Sweden offers you the best price for your beer, as compared to -almost neighbouring- Germany, where due to high competition the prices are the lowest.
If Sweden ranks high here, then Norway and Denmark also do. Surprisingly also the Americans and the Japanese pay quite a bit for the beer they import. They must be rich… For other countries with lower volumes it may be the case that they mostly import specialty beers, which explains that they are in the price top-10.
So: who wants a beer?
It all depends on your strategy: do you want to sell high volumes, as a Heineken or Carlsberg, then clearly the South European markets with high growth are interesting. If you have more a specialty beer and you are looking at higher margins, then Scandinavia, the US or Japan may be interesting. All are stable countries with low credit risks. Further market research should tell you more about the local competition, but now you know where to start, at least for beer!
